Cellulosic materials are available in sufficient quantities as a low-cost feedstock for fuel ethanol production. Cellulosic materials, including corn fiber and sorghum, contain oil. Methods of extracting oil from, e.g., corn fiber are well known in the art.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,843,499 concerns a method of preparing corn fiber oil by separating corn fiber from corn kernels, drying the corn fiber, grinding the corn fiber, extracting oil from the ground corn fiber by means of an organic solvent and supercritical fluid extraction, and separating the extracted corn fiber oil from the organic solvent.
It is an object of the present invention to provide improved methods of preconditioning pretreated cellulosic material and to provide improved processes of recovering/extracting oil, producing fermentation products and sugars from pretreated lignocellulosic materials.